August 04, 2014

The Maya of Employee Disengagement

This must be the week for epiphanies.

Saturday I went for a run (8 miles of trails, getting ready for a marathon in September, mid-October). About mile two I settled in to an easy pace, easy breathing, a pace that lets me review the week and my checklists and to-do’s. Inevitably, as it always does, threads of blog posts to be written or those I’ve read join me for a few miles.

And as I mulled over that post I remembered there’s something called maya, an illusion of reality whose hold on our minds is so strong we forget Truth. We become slaves to maya’s duality, enabling it with an infrastructure we create filled with pretty colors and shiny, spinning things.

Employee disengagement is such an illusive duality. It exists because ... we created it. Now we’d rather meet about it, than do it. (Yes, I guess, blog about it.) We’d rather survey employees than engage with them. We’d rather throw a trinket, like those on a Mardi Gras float to gawking crowds, than have coffee with our colleages and hear what is meaningful to them. Too many rules and policies are in place to make sure employees are unable to engage with each other or with their work. As executives move up the corporate ladder they pull that ladder up behind them, creating layers of management and lines of reporting.

It’s like we’re sitting in a dark room and everyone’s coming up with a plan to ‘get rid of the darkness.’ There’s plans to push that ol’ darkness into a corner. There’s new terms, Discretionary Effort is my favorite, to describe the darkness. There’s new ways to slice it and qualify it, percentages to rate it. Surveys are taken to measure the darkness. Naturally being in the darkness ... well, that Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle applies here with less gunfire than it's applied in a TV series.

Occupants are asked which of them feel their part of the room is the darkest, which of them feel the darkness has made their work more difficult and Who here loves the darkness? Yay! There’s always a cheerleader in the crowd. And there’s always the deniers. We don’t need the light. It’s always been dark in here, why’n we need to change. Huh?

All of these conversations and meetings are held where? Right, in the dark with the special group that helped create it. By doing so, they reinforce the duality of us - the engaged vs them - the disengaged. Consultants are hired. They have tools and programs to help see in the dark, meet in the dark, survey in the dark, manage the dark.

Oh, and don’t forget the awards for the survivors, those who’ve suffered, survived the longest.

Nobody talks about the light switch on the far wall. Someone turned it off awhile ago. Incentives are aligned to discourage anyone from flicking it on. You’re told to forget it or there’s so many meetings about the darkness and surveys to issue and results to tabulate there’s no time to flick it on.

That light switch is ... get away from our desks, leave our offices and go engage. Step out of the darkness and go meet with those not invited to the meetings you hold ‘about them.’

Ask them questions about their work, their dreams, their tools and training. Ask them about their life outside of work, where they’re engaged. You’ll begin to understand where the gap is created. One tip: if this is your first outing in a long time, go slow. Maybe start with a smile, an introduction and a request to interrupt their day with a question. Then be quiet.

Please. Don’t hide behind the ‘Well, you can’t expect the CEO or the CFO or the COO ... to meet with all the employees ... ‘ because they have ‘important’ things to do. Engaging employees, not meeting about their disengagement, brings such outstanding financial results regardless of industry, company size, stage of growth, that there’s no excuse. In the above metaphor, that’s like saying please don’t expect us to step out of the darkness. The light is so bright out there.’

But I’m practical and pragmatic. The C’s can meet with their direct reports, setting the example, leading by example. ( The elephant in this room is that the C’s behavior set the priorities, and the rewards for those who mimic’d their behavior carved it in stone. Or, said another way, the C’s turned off the light and dared anyone to turn it back on. Harsh. But ... ) The C’s can explain the importance of this time investment, how it keeps a direct line of sight with the company’s goals, purpose and mission. Equally important will be the learning in these conversations. That builds bridges, closes gaps. Languages are learned and perspectives translated, understood and finally merged into something ... bigger, better. Oh, and then there’s no ... duality. No us vs them.

There are any number of tools to help engage remote workforces. These can work here, too. That is if anyone’s willing to connect their use with the company goals and purposes.

Books I've Read and Recommend

Jackie Huba: Monster Loyalty: How Lady Gaga Turns Followers into Fanaticsa bigger challenge than I predicted. It’s not what to say that challenged me. It’s what NOT to say. I start reading and within 3-4 paragraphs, I’m nodding my head and saying Yes, yes, exactly. Bam. Bam, baby. Yeah, come on. Can I get a witness. Then I want to share verbatim Jackie’s translation of Gaga’s strategy. Here’s why. It’s a strategy with 7 steps that any, ANY, business can execute under its own terms and under its own budget no matter how small or large. Granted, I enjoy reading this strategy as it’s applied to Gaga. And Jackie's a good writer. But, what's really inspiring is understanding how even a car wash could apply this strategy with these 7 steps and find success. You could build a global empire selling gardening mulch if you followed these 7 steps. And you could lower your advertising and marketing budgets, to boot.

Kevin Allen: The Case of the Missing Cutlery: A Leadership Course for the Rising StarYes! Finally a leadership book and author who bring empathy, caring and listening to the front of the leadership room instead of insisting it sit in the back, laughed at or ignored with no champion and certainly no budget to help spotlight its role in creating engaged leaders.
He had me as a reader and fan on the first page of his introduction. Here’s what he wrote:
Years later, when I was made Executive Vice President at McCann Erickson Worldwide ... I came to realize that the gift of human empathy, which had guided me through those early days at Marriott, would allow me to steer literally thousands of people to row in the direction of McCann Erickson’s future.
I’ve learned things the hard way, through trial and error, mostly error. Through it all, I came to realize people follow you because of who you are; because you have come to understand the deep desires and hopes of your people; and because, by connecting with them, you have created a culture and a common cause they believe in.

Chuck Blakeman: Why Employees Are Always a Bad IdeaI love this book. It's true that I say this about every book I review here. And why shouldn't I? Why waste time reviewing a book I don't love.
That being said...Why Employees Are Always a Bad Idea: (and other business diseases of the industrial age) is one of my favorite business books for a long time.
It starts with the title. It's eye-catching, provocative, right? Mentally, it's a head-slap, positing a theorem inside your head then pounding it home with AlwayandBad to let you know you're not getting away; you're going to have your mind changed. Right now.
As I kept looking at the title, tilting my head like a dog - one side to the other - I began to smile. I read a kindred spirit. Here's a rebel, a true disruptor, someone who's willing speak up, take a stand; I like that. I might not agree with what I'm about to read, but his title made me smile without being cloying or clever so I knew I was in for a good ride.

Stephen Lynch: Business Execution for RESULTS: A practical guide for leaders of small to mid-sized firmsI'm an avid reader, always have been. I've read a lot of business books and I’ve led a small business. I recommend you read Business Execution for Results: A Practical Guide for Leaders of Small to Mid-Sized Firms. It is a very, very good book, among the best, most usable business books I’ve read.
As a writer, he does things that make the reading very pleasant, very inspiring, very engaging. Very good.
He offers personal stories, anecdotes, little clips. They’re genuine, sincere, well-organized to capture your attention, engage you in the story that illustrates the next lesson. I found myself thinking...I can relate...I am relating....I see, feel, remember this personally. And Stephen’s writing is very crisp, very concise in taking you from these stories to the principle with each chapter...and as important to the steps you’re going to take to generate the results you want to see. No hitch in the reading flow. VERY nice.